I don't have a horse in the race on this one. Just a few recommendations:
1: The refurbishers here care about the product that they're putting out.
2: You would probably be better off with a business class machine as opposed to a cheapie consumer grade. The hardware is is a bit better. Dell has a nice line and an overall good reputation for quality.
3: Look at the available number of slots for memory on the motherboard. Some have two and others have four. Having only two really limits your options.
4: Heat is the enemy. In theory .... the old p-4's could have been built to a processor speed of 10 ghz but the power consumption ( and heat dissipation ) would have been off the charts.
Power consumption is an important consideration when doing a processor upgrade. With a lot of the core 2 Dells .... it's a good idea to limit power consumption to 95 watts.
5: Quad cores and faster dual cores don't always translate into higher passmark scores.
6: IMO ... the decision of duo vs quad should be based more on how you use the machine. If you do a lot of multitasking a quad might be a better fit.
7: I wouldn't recommend windows 8. Overall .... the general public wasn't very happy with it. Windows 8.1 is a little better but it's jarring for anyone used to previous versions of windows because they re-arranged everything. It remains to be seen if windows 10 will be any better.
It's looking like windows 7 will be the new win xp. It's a fairly good program. For a business .... windows 7 professional, 64 bit, would be a good choice.
8: In fairness .... some of the larger retail chains have been carrying " off lease '' refurbs. Some of the advertised prices were pretty hard to compete with but you have to bear in mind that you get what you pay for. They're suitable for some ... not so much for others.
Bookmarks